


Still I Choose to Swim

by thequakingaspen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, also this is basically a snippet that moonlights as character study, and not enough feelings about himself, bros being stoic, scott gets injured oops, slight meta because scott has a lot of stiles feelings, stiles is a secret medic in training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequakingaspen/pseuds/thequakingaspen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrapping a leather belt around Scott's forearm and the spiraling black-to-red gradient of blood, Stiles glances warily at Scott, possibly catalogs his reaction as Stiles demands, <i>Tell me something you've never told me before.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Still I Choose to Swim

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/308944.html?thread=56484816#t56484816) prompt: "Scott (+Any), wolfsbane poisoning."
> 
> fyi: if it helps, during the last half of sophomore year/the summer before junior year, i've pictured deaton taking stiles under his wing, and therefore stiles has basic knowledge of quick-fix medical procedures for reckless werewolves and the relentless hunters who chase them around town.

It steals through him like a knife, winding black veins that curl around his forearm. Scott stares at them and not the panicked look on Stiles' face.  
  
 _I'm going to help you._ Stiles doesn't say, _you're going to be fine,_ or, _don't worry,_ because he's smarter than that - smarter than Scott, intelligent perhaps not on paper but in the accumulation of all the knowledge he has spread out long, gangly arms to try and understand.  
  
There is no accurate way to describe the nauseating wildfire licking at every inch of Scott's skin until he can feel his pores sweating with it. The sensation is akin to a shiver that raises the hairs on your arms, makes your body's natural defenses sit up on alert: like feeling a flea skirting through the hair on your legs. Scott grinds his teeth together at the sudden roiling in his gut, a fine tremor that starts as a twitch in his calf and then makes the muscles in his thighs quiver.  
  
Wrapping a leather belt around Scott's forearm and the spiraling black-to-red gradient of blood, Stiles glances warily at Scott, possibly catalogs his reaction as Stiles demands, _Tell me something you've never told me before._  
  
 _Why?_ is Scott's instinctual reaction, but he does not say it. The pain is too vivid, a bone-deep thrum making the edges of his vision sparkle like static, his abdominal muscles clench. _I can't,_ is what Scott forces through his clenched jaw. Stiles' laugh is nothing more than a huff that ruffles his unbuttoned plaid shirt. Scott is so used to that exasperated laugh that he's genuinely surprised when Stiles doesn't follow it up with a satirical remark, just pays close attention to something indistinct and out of Scott's direct line of sight.  
  
 _Look - listen to me, Scott, hey,_ and Stiles snaps his fingers in front of Scott's face although he can hardly see them: the reverberations along Deaton's office walls are the only indicators Scott can recognize, now. Sensations like the crack of a whip or the swing of a blade, hard and true; Scott relies on them through heightened senses like a dying man to the last drop of water in the canteen, and perhaps that is closer to the truth than he intended. Scott does not have to look up and catch Stiles eye to acknowledge him; Stiles bends over to put their faces closer, clasps the side of Scott's neck with one warm, slightly roughened palm - he doesn't have the luxury of cell regeneration, all of his worn battle scars are from determined bravado and a fuck-you attitude, nothing for Stiles to fall back on in case he goes over his head and looks before he leaps; he can take one step too far and not be able to walk back, and maybe that's why Derek has taken an interest in keeping Stiles around more than he used to, back when they were fresh off of their first year of high school with no idea how to handle being something bigger than yourself.  
  
They aren't much further along - you can live an entire lifetime in a single year, but they haven't; junior year is only a few months in and Scott is bent double over a plastic chair in the back of a veterinary clinic after hours, three solid wolfsbane bullets driven through forearm and bicep and shoulder, point-by-point-by-point without hesitation.  
  
 _I need you to focus on me and not the pain,_ Stiles murmurs, pressing sure fingertips into the fleshy give of Scott's forearm. Stiles isn't trembling, like the jerky movements of Scott's hand, painted in black, and if he is, he's doing a better job of hiding it.  
  
 _That's kind of hard to do,_ Scott says, and this time Stiles’ laugh is more pronounced in the hollow of his throat.  
  
 _I know, buddy._ He's already sterilized a steel surgical tool, long fingers balancing the pinchers very carefully above the bullet wound pulsing like a heartbeat in Scott's ears. _But I really need you to try, okay?_ He chooses his words with precision, gentle touches and a calm voice; he is every bit the boy who used to fall out of the tree in Scott's backyard and then try to climb it again anyway, and a new man entirely that has nothing to do with Scott. Stiles didn't need a boost to his genetic code to become someone better and more whole.

Scott casts around wildly for an idea as Stiles brings down the pinchers, cool metal tips just grazing the inside of where he's torn open, forced into vulnerability. The only thought that sticks is a sense memory of soft, brown hair against his face, happiness bright and true from an ungaurded smile; the fuzzy edges of an almost-dream, coloured with affection. It hadn't been a problem, hiding their relationship from the other Argents; they were teenagers, and the excitement of something forbidden, the thrill of a silent chase constantly nipping at Scott's heels, making him run - making them run, together.  
  
But they'd never been that close to being caught, before. Allison had never shot him. Tonight she had looked him in the eye, heels dug firmly into the ground and a ramrod straight back, and put three bullets into Scott without even blinking.  
  
 _For safety,_ they had whispered in the dead of night, spread out on cotton sheets and midsummer night's breeze. _For our families. To protect those that we love. To protect each other._  
  
Scott whispers, _I'm scared,_ when Stiles presses the steel into his skin because Stiles asked for something he had never said and that is the truth: there is nothing more humanizing than being remade into something able to overcome the whisper of Death's seductive mouth but left with nowhere to run from pain. In the long-run the pain will be brief, only a sharp sting that will fade away into nothing and be sewn back into Scott's skin; but it's not the long-run that scares Scott, it's the here and now. There is more at stake in this cat-and-mouse game with mortality than a few resealable wounds; Scott has always held himself responsible for dragging his so-very-human friends into this, but he's starting to think maybe they aren't the only ones being pulled into something against their will.  
  
The weight of Stiles palm is steady against Scott's elbow, their arms slotted together while Stiles braces but doesn't frown, or gag, or sweat. Stiles gazes intently at the entry wound and replies, _How about something I don't know._ He has to apply particular pressure, tongue poking out and eyes lit up - he's found it, clenches the tips of the pinchers around the bullet and pulls, slowly.  
  
Gasping, Scott blurts, _The first time I saw Fight Club was with Allison, not my cousin._  
  
Stiles gapes at him while dropping the bullet into a metal dish on the table. _Dude! We made a bro-pact to watch that together._  
  
 _I know._ We promised to do a lot of things.  
  
Stiles grumbles through the next bullet but starts to work quicker, more efficiently. Scott can't open his mouth to talk anymore, lets the persistent thump of Stiles' heartbeat, the cadence of his rambling voice roll over Scott and dull his mind. Stiles looks like he's been rolling around in motor oil, a black streak on his chin, over his clavicle, in the crease of his elbow. His fingernails are caked black and a little rough at the edges - he used to bite them when he got nervous, but Scott hasn't seen Stiles nervous since before they ran into the woods one night and Scott came back bitten and bruised. Stiles is anxious, he's always anxious, but it isn't fear; it's something else, something that pushes Stiles to throw himself feet-first into the water with a shout, something that Scott has yet to master himself.  
  
One day Stiles will look at him and say, _You overcame more than you know,_ but it will be years down the line and by that point, Scott will already know it down to the depths of his bones.  
  
Right now Scott is seventeen and in love, with a best friend he doesn't deserve at his back and the world snarling at his face from the front, and he knows nothing at all.


End file.
